Unintended Consequences

LAS CRUCES, NM.  I had thought that age 50+ civic engagement had two primary benefits: helping nonprofit organizations accomplish their missions and strengthening the sense of purpose for those 50+ who contributed their time and talent.

In Las Cruces, I learned about a third major pay-off.

I was there talking with representatives of two communities-- Las Cruces and nearby Alamogordo, people who ran senior centers and RSVPs and who were involved in the cultural lives of the two towns.

We were mapping out plans to present the Coming of Age “Capturing the Energy and Expertise of People 50+” Learning Lab and some other of the initiative’s programs, when the idea of how these activities could bring people together came up.

The energy in the room kicked up a notch.

We’re Going to Mix It Up

People had all sorts of ideas about how these programs would get together folks who don’t always interact so much with each other.

Citizens of the two communities themselves for sure.  But also the Mexican and Anglo communities. And having people representing the arts mix it up with those involved with education and senior services and other kinds of community work.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is usually thought of in a bad way: "An intervention in a complex system that may or may not have the intended result, but will inevitably create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes" is how Wikipedia puts it.

That wasn’t the way folks in New Mexico thought things would play out. 

They were thinking not only would they end up with more compelling roles for people 50+ to play in local organizations, not only would they be building the capacity of those organizations and thereby creating a stronger Las Cruces and Alamogordo, but also that they would be helping knit the community together, tighter, closer, and richer in the most human sense of that term.

Unintended Consequences of the Good Kind

As I see our programs become part of more and more communities, it’s amazing to me how many of them have “unintended consequences of the good kind.”

How at our Boomervision! lectures, during the dialogue with the presenters, those under 50+ will say, “But I’m interested in legacy (or meaningful work or telling my story or whatever the topic is) too!”

How at our training sessions, executive directors and program managers say “We can apply these ideas to creating roles and cultivating all our volunteers—not just older ones.”

Is the work we’re doing to tap the resource that people 50+ represent, our anti-ageism and promotion of positive aging having some other “unintended consequence?”

Like helping connect people who otherwise are “siloed?” And empower people of all ages?

It sure looks like it to me.